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Alabaster jar or clay pot – it’s got to be emptied

The NT in a year reading today contained Ephesians 5: 8, “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light”

It caught me that the verse doesn’t say I was “in” darkness, but that I “was” darkness. I am now not merely walking in light, but I “am” that light. The next verse explains it in more detail, that the fruit of light is light. I like it, but I have more meditating to do about that.

Yesterday, I had a thought while at YoGod (a Christ-centered, worshipful, yoga experience). Joye, our facilitator, read about the broken alabaster jar of nard that was poured out onto Jesus at the home of Simon the Leper. The devotional she read pointed out that the jar, an expensive product itself, had to be broken before the precious contents could be spilled out. While that was certainly a picture of what was about to happen to Jesus, the most precious of vessels issuing forth the most precious of anointing, it is also true of me. I more closely associate with the clay pots of Gideon than with any priceless jar, but the fact remains that I must be broken before what is inside, whether actually valuable or just prized by me for a temporary occasion, can be poured out. It is also only then, when I am broken and completely poured out onto Jesus, that I become the blessing to Him I was created to be, and come into the relationship I was built to maintain. I am broken and poured out, so that I can accept, freehanded, what Jesus was broken and poured out. I empty myself of me, and He empties Himself for and to me. I am all I am, and have all I have, for, to and because of Him. I do so love my Jesus! I do so wish to please Him.

Holy Father, make me more like the One to whom I belong – Christ Jesus, Your Son. Thank You for grace. Help me live in it and love with it.

I started today poorly, griping about the sleep I did not get, but You, who make all things new, please help me start again, lovingly sacrificing myself to the world around me rather than trying to claim what parts of it I feel are mine.